


The Hockey Player

by MeansToOffend (goodmorning)



Series: 31 in 31: NHL Fairy Tales [4]
Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Fairy Tale Retellings, M/M, Winnipeg Jets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-07
Updated: 2017-09-07
Packaged: 2018-12-25 03:01:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12026715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goodmorning/pseuds/MeansToOffend
Summary: "It was in one of these books that King Blake first learned of the existence of the hockey player.At first, he thought it must be a joke, or a fairy tale, for who could be so skilled without the king hearing of him? But as he read through the night, King Blake kept seeing the name, over and over again:Patrik Laine."





	The Hockey Player

It may be that you already know the king of Winnipeg is surrounded by Canadians, but this is an old story and these things sometimes need restating. Back in the days when there _was_ such a man as the king of Winnipeg, rather than the prime ministers of today, the kingdom was fabulously wealthy - and the king in this story was the one who helped make it the wealthiest of all. 

King Blake Wheeler of Winnipeg had all the things a king could want. He had a beautiful palace full of gold, and gems, and an ice rink large enough to house a giant, if the giant was lying down. He had cooks to make him delicious dishes, stewards to serve them, and maids to clean up afterwards. He had many noble friends with whom he sometimes played hockey, when he could convince them to.

Unfortunately, he also had an excessive amount of boredom.

By and by, it happened that he began to complain about this to the other kings of North America when they arrived on diplomatic visits. This resulted in their sending him a great many travel books, nearly all of which were about his own kingdom.

“What am I supposed to do with all of these, Scheifele?” the king asked his chamberlain.

“They’re books, Your Majesty,” he replied. “I know this may be a radical suggestion, but perhaps you should try reading them.”

“You know what I meant,” the king said, but he took the chamberlain’s advice and began on the pile.

King Mikko of Minnesota had been the most affected by King Blake’s complaints, as his kingdom was Winnipeg’s closest neighbour. Because of this, he’d sent many more books than the other kings - and it was in one of these books that King Blake first learned of the existence of the hockey player.

At first, he thought it must be a joke, or a fairy tale, for who could be so skilled without the king hearing of him? But as he read through the night, King Blake kept seeing the name, over and over again:

Patrik Laine.

In the morning, the king summoned his chamberlain. “Scheifele, have you heard of Patrik Laine?”

“No, Your Majesty. Who is he?”

“They say he plays hockey more beautiful than anything else that can be seen in my kingdom,” said King Blake, gesturing to a stack of travel books. “I have to see it for myself.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” the chamberlain agreed, and left before the king could think of anything more ridiculous for him to do.

He’d been running around the palace all day, asking everyone he could find whether they had heard of this hockey player, but no-one had. Mark was slumped on the grand staircase, on the verge of giving up, when a young man in an assistant chef’s uniform approached him.

“Mr. Scheifele, what does the king want with Patrik Laine?”

“His Majesty is desperate to see the man play hockey, but I have no idea where to look next,” said the chamberlain, who was normally quite a clever man but who was also at his wits’ end.

“We’re on a team together,” the assistant chef said. “There’s a practice tonight, if you want to come explain the situation to him.”

If the chamberlain hadn’t already been sitting down, he might have fallen. Like all good chamberlains, though, he was quick to regain his composure. “Thank you, Nikolaj,” said Mark, and resolved to give him a raise.

Mark wasn’t sure what he’d expected to see in the small, dim rink, but Laine wasn’t it. He was big, sure, but besides that he was plain, with skin and hair so pale he looked as if he could blend into the ice itself.

Then he moved.

He stole the puck, deking around the two people playing defense as easily as if they were standing still, and dipped to one knee to snap it past the goalie. The momentum from his ensuing celebration carried him right to them.

“Hey, Nik, I was wondering why you were late,” Laine said. “And who is this?”

The chamberlain interjected as politely as possible, extending a hand to shake. “Mark Scheifele, chamberlain. His Majesty the king wishes to watch you exhibit your skill this evening.”

“With pleasure,” Laine said. “It’s better with people I can play against, but that’s no problem if it’s for the king.”

And so it was that Patrik Laine ended up at the palace that evening, alone on the giant-sized rink. He played for what seemed to be hours - now stickhandling in the far corner, now shooting from the near boards, now working on his edges at center ice - the king’s friends were entranced, and the king himself smiled the radiant smile he’d thought he lost years ago.

“How can I even begin to repay you?” King Blake asked, when Patrik was finally finished.

“No need,” he replied. “If it’s going to make you smile like that, I will happily play for you every single day.”

And so the king’s noble friends were suddenly far more inclined to play hockey with him in the mornings, and Patrik continued to play for him at night, and the king grew much less bored than he had been before.

The king also grew closer to Patrik, discussing family and dreams, wishing fervently that he could muster the courage to ask about his flowing golden hair. Patrik, in his turn, grew closer to the king, discussing friends and goals, complimenting King Blake’s smile at every possible moment. But getting close to a king can cause problems, as he shortly found out.

Kings, when they are very young, are often spoiled. Nurseries full of toys are excellent places for children to enjoy themselves; they are, however, not the best at teaching difficult life lessons, like “we can’t always have everything we want” and “sharing is really the polite thing to do.” And Patrik became, in a sense, the king’s favourite ‘toy.’

All of which, simply, meant King Blake was less and less willing to share him.

“What if you get hurt at practice? I don’t know if I could handle it,” the king said every time Patrik packed his gear.

“I’m not going to get hurt,” Patrik told him every time, and went to practice.

Not even the hockey gods know whether Patrik would eventually have gotten hurt or not, though, for the very next day a package labelled ‘Patrik Laine’ arrived from Minnesota. At first the court thought it was a gift for the man, but when they opened it, it was something else entirely.

Eyes of lapis, skin of silver, hair of spun gold: a windup hockey player looked at them all with Patrik’s face, and when it took to the ice it had Patrik’s moves, too.

It took them three hours to notice Patrik was gone.

The artificial hockey player was lauded, for not only could it move as prettily as Patrik did, it also gleamed under the bright lights of the royal rink in a most pleasing way. Over time, though, its mechanisms deteriorated, and the key became harder and harder to wind, and they decided to reserve it for only the most important celebrations.

King Blake began to miss Patrik, for the windup hockey player never laughed, and he began to sicken, loneliness and guilt causing him to waste away. At last he was so weak he could barely talk, and the servants left his room believing this night would be his last.

The king believed it too, and never more than when Death appeared, tiny gremlin face at odds with the large scythe he carried.

“You know, I moved your country to Arizona once,” Death commented, sharpening it. “But of course there’s a reason I haven’t tried to kill anything as big as a country since then.”

“This is the end, then?” the king asked, ignoring Death’s words but unable to ignore his presence. “I just wish I could have seen Patrik one more time.”

From the hall came a small clacking and scraping, the familiar sound of stickhandling drills on a marble floor. The king assumed, for a moment, that it was a hallucination, conjured up by his own friendly mind.

“I thought we might make a game of it,” Patrik said from the doorway, “but you obviously can’t hold a stick right now, Your Majesty.”

“Patrik?” King Blake asked. “Are you really here?”

“Where else would I be?”

“But I replaced you!”

“So? I still love you, you idiot.”

“As touching as this is,” Death put in, “I have something more important to say.”

The two men stared at Death, waiting for him to get on with it.

“Um,” Death said, clearly uncomfortable. “Is nobody going to ask?”

“What?” Patrik said, quickly, to forestall the king from getting up and doing himself an injury.

“It’s just that... well, I’d really like to see you do that trick again.”

“Oh,” said Patrik, thinking. “I’ll do it if you’ll give me your scythe then.”

“Deal!” Death said, and handed it over.

Patrik gave it to the king to hold, and began a mesmerising bout of stickwork, weaving the puck through his legs, around tables and chairs, off walls and dressers, progressing through the room in a circuitous path. When he finally reached the spot he’d been aiming for, he wound up and shot the puck straight at Death.

It hit him square in the temple, and he crumpled. In a flash, Patrik retrieved the scythe and lifted it to strike the unconscious anthropomorphic personification.

Death vanished, as did the scythe. Patrik heard a noise behind him, and, turning, he found that it was King Blake. The king was standing unaided, looking nearly as hale and hearty as the day Patrik had first seen him, and his heart leapt with joy.

“Is it true, then, that you really love me?” asked the king.

“How could you ever doubt it?” he replied, and King Blake’s face broke into the same beautiful smile Patrik had stayed for in the first place.

“But how can I repay you for saving my life?” the king asked, and Patrik was pretty sure that was a proposition. He would definitely take the king up on his offer later, but for now there were more important issues at hand.

“Right now, you need to rest.”

“Please stay,” King Blake begged, the tiredness of weeks of bed rest catching up to him in a rush.

“You still can’t keep me, like a bird in a cage,” Patrik warned him, helping him to bed, “but I’ll be here when you wake up.” And, so saying, he leant down and kissed the king.

When the servants tiptoed in the next morning, expecting to commence the sad duties that come with a king’s decease. They rejoiced when they found instead that Patrik was back and the king was well, and if anyone had something to say about the way their fingers were laced together, it wasn’t said then.

And so they stood there, all in shock and joy, and the king smiled and wished them a good morning.

**Author's Note:**

> \- This is indeed based on HCA's "The Nightingale". His style is a lot harder to emulate than the Grimms' so I hope I did it justice.  
> \- Actually the hardest thing about fairy tales is that there's no real development of any of the characters or relationships.


End file.
